Exposing the latest exhibition of the ignorance that pollutes so much of the material published at Movieguide, Steven Greydanus published this article about The Rite and Movieguide's review of it. … [Read more...]

BEHOLD... BALLAST! A little while back, you posted a trailer for Lance Hammer's Ballast on your blog, which I watched and decided to check out sometime. To my delight, Ballast just had its Canadian premiere at the Vancouver Film Festival, and I was able to catch that screening. I've posted my review of the film at my blog: http://filmatical.wordpress.com/Ballast is an excellent film, and I want to thank you for putting it onto my radar.By the way, I've started reading Auralia's Colors … [Read more...]

At Christ and Pop Culture, Movieguide reportedly has "the last word."Here's what they want: We support a return to the Moral Code of Decency and the vetting of all scripts for movies going to public theater and DVD retail within 20 years, if not in 3-5 years. That would probably include the elimination of all R-rated and NC-17 content as well as most PG-13 content. We also look forward to Christian/biblical hegemony within the industry. If this ministry had much more support, our progress … [Read more...]

I've been trying to ignore this, but Movieguide's Ted Baehr just keeps bashing away at Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood for being "anti-Christian," and for including "one of the worst, most superficial stereotype of Christian preachers ever put on film."(Similarly, Barbara Nicolosi slammed the movie in a post called "There Will Be Bigotry", which you can find in her archive here... but you have to scroll down a bit. The 105-comment discussion connected to it became rather lively … [Read more...]

Guillermo Del Toro, the new king of monster movies, is about to unleash Hellboy 2.But according to MTV.com, his mind is already busy with visions of what might be his his next big project. No, it's not The Hobbit, and no, it's not that Tarzan project he was talking about a while back.Here's a hint: For Kenneth Branagh, it was a big mistake.Can you guess?Personally, I've had this particular monster on the brain lately... … [Read more...]

This week's Film Forum contains dangerous material.Christians are giving mixed reviews to The Nativity Story.Some of them love it, some of them like it, some of them don't like it.Could it be that a movie might fall short of greatness, even if the story that it tells is the Greatest Story Ever Told?Could it be that a Christian might still have misgivings about a work of art, even if that art is about Jesus?Or is it a crime to point out weaknesses in a big-screen version of … [Read more...]

A prominent Christian media personality has disregarded the professional standard of waiting until opening day to publish a review of The Nativity Story, and he offers some rather, um, arresting observations: Having spent some time in Israel researching other movies, I can attest to the authenticity of even the smallest details of life in Israel in the first century. The crucifixions, the agriculture, the ephods, everything is done exquisitely.... I can hardly wait. There's nothing I love more … [Read more...]

Many thanks to Looking Closer reader Tim Willson for this editorial on some unethical practices at Movieguide. Here's Tim...[This editorial was originally posted at Looking Closer in 2004.] Christianity Today has been forced to defend itself after recently questioning the ethics of film critic Ted Baehr, founder of MovieGuide. A recent article generated considerable heat and a flurry of public and private communication, and even Pat Boone has weighed in on the subject, defending Baehr in a … [Read more...]